Back in July of 2014, I spent a weekend in the French Riviera on a United business class fare deal. On the way back, my flight from Zurich to Newark eventually cancelled after many hours of mechanical delays.
I miss this view from my balcony at Grand Hyatt Cannes!
As a United 1K at the time, I got rebooked in Swiss Business class later that evening and was given a $500 “good will” voucher from the airline for the inconvenience.
However, I knew I was also due €600 in compensation as per Regulation (EC) 261/2004. I contacted the United several times and filed several claims on my own. United denied all of my attempts.
I was frustrated that I was not getting through to United even though the Regulation (EC) 261/2004 is pretty cut and dry. Life got in the way, and I ended up putting the claim on the back burner for good.
Then I learned that you can get paid on claims for flights dating up to 6 years back! It was time to revisit the case.
Rather than putting more of my own energy into pursuing the claim, I decided to hand it over to gopogo, a company that knows the ins and out & deals specifically with these claims all day long for a 25% commission (only if your claim is successful).
Honestly, so much time has passed that I thought to myself, “hey if I get something out of this, it’ll be like ‘free money’ at this point”.
Working with gopogo was seamless. I had my money in my bank account within 7 days from the time I filled out the form with my flight details.
When I got this email, I was stoked!
And when I saw this payment post yesterday, I was even more thrilled!
How Do You Know If You’re Due Compensation For a Delayed or Cancelled Flight With Regulation (EC) 261/2004?
If your flight was delayed from EU member state by three or more hours and this wasn’t the result of extraordinary circumstances, you are entitled to financial compensation.
The compensation amount is determined by Regulation (EC) 261/2004 and is dependent on a number of variables (the distance of your flight and the length of your delay). The regulations apply to all European and non-European airlines, but if your flight departed from a non-EU airport there are some additional conditions the flight must meet. If you’re flying from a non-European airport to a European airport, the operating airline must be European in order for you to qualify for compensation. In my case, since my original ticket was for Nice, France to Newark (with a layover in Zurich), my ticket was eligible.
Flights of less than 1500 km’s are due compensation of €250, between 1500 km’s and 3500 km’s due €400 and flights over 3500 km’s €600.
Aside from financial compensation, you’re also entitled to receive care from the airline in the event of a delay, cancellation or overbooking. This includes food, drinks and/or refreshments, two free phone calls, fax messages or emails, and in some cases hotel accommodation. If you incur expenses at the airport as a result of not receiving this care, you may be entitled to a refund for these costs.
Bottom Line
What can I say? I’m on cloud 9 that I received $675 for a flight that was cancelled 2 years ago with the help of the pros at gopogo.co.
If you’re in a similar boat, and can think of a time within the last few years that you had a cancelled or delayed EU flight, it might pay (literally) to file a claim to receive compensation. You can always file yourself, or have a third party like gopogo handle everything from start to finish.
Have you received compensation from a delayed or cancelled flight in the past? If so, please share your experiences!
Disclosure: I reached out to the folks at gopogo.co on a whim to see if they thought it would be worth it to pursue my claim from 2014. They were confident in my success and allowed me to receive my compensation commission-free in exchange for sharing my experience on the blog. If it weren’t for them, I would have never known that my claim was still valid, so I owe them a world of thanks for the “free money”. I was not compensated for this post and the opinions are entirely my own.
I was able to do it when I had a 7 hour delay from Brussels to IAD in June. I had the money in hand by early November, which I thought was great since I had only filed a claim in October. We were on an award ticket so this truly was “free money”.
I was on the same route, BRU-IAD except it was back in Dec 2014. I’ve filed numerous claims and even used another claims service(sorry don’t remeber the name, but it was recommended on boardingarea). All previous attempts were denied. Hopefully, this time it will work out.
It’s such a pain when they are denied. Keep us posted about your results this time around!
A flight delay, then cancellation from JFK to AUH on Etihad wouldn’t qualify for compensation right? I was supposed to leave on a Thursday, but the Thursday flight had delays and then eventual cancellation. I was rebooked for a Friday flight, forcing me to lose a day in my trip.
Bummer! Sadly it would not qualify under this regulation. :( Try contacting Etihad customer care, maybe they can do something for you.
Is there help like this for US flights? Frustrated that we lost quite a bit of money due to a flight cancelation on American last month. They refunded that fare, but only partially refunded the next flight although our family could not get to the destination. Lost our hotel money too. Grrr.
Sadly no, but you can try contacting customer care or filing a claim with your credit card company if travel protection is a benefit.
In December my YUL-ZUR flight on Swiss was delayed by 6 hours, as a result of which I had to run to make my ZUR-DEL connection on what was meant to be a 6.5-hour layover in ZUR. I complained to Swiss, and after a lot of back and forth they offered me $100. I thought that was better than nothing so took it. I wish I had known about gopogo.com … next time (I’m sure there will be one)!
You can still file a claim if your flight was this past December… my flight was in 2014. You have 6 years to file a claim. Good luck and keep us posted!
This has all the classic signs of a scam so don’t be fooled. The most obvious one is an email filled with grammar mistakes asking you to send all your banking information.
Regulation (EC) 261/2004 is a legitimate regulation that’s been around for more than a decade. Even if filing directly with the airline you will have to provide the exact same information for the money to be received because it is paid directly into your account.
Nice! It took me quite awhile of screwing around but I ended up getting Aer Lingus to pay us $1306 for a canceled flight
http://www.pointswithacrew.com/why-aer-lingus-is-paying-me-1306/
Nice! I’ll admit that your post was the seed of inspiration to trying to fight harder on my claim. lol
You should send your case to local news station. The bastards pay only after getting a shake down from a professional. They should be following the law and paying automatically. They deserve to get bad publicity.
I searched for reviews of this company, and couldn’t find any. How can we know that it’s a trustworthy establishment and not a scam?
Thank you!